History
Founding
Parks and recreation
Seattle's mild, temperate, marine climate allows year-round outdoor recreation, including walking, cycling, hiking, skiing, snowboarding, kayaking, rock climbing, motor boating, sailing, team sports, and swimming. In town, many people walk around Green Lake (Seattle), Green Lake, through the forests and along the bluffs and beaches of Discovery Park (Seattle), Discovery Park (the largest park in the city) in Magnolia, Seattle, Magnolia, along the shores of Myrtle Edwards Park on the Downtown waterfront, along the shoreline of Lake Washington at Seward Park (Seattle), Seward Park, along Alki Beach in West Seattle, or along the Burke-Gilman Trail. Gas Works Park features the preserved superstructure of a coal gasification plant closed in 1956. Located across Lake Union from downtown, the park provides panoramic views of the Seattle skyline. Also popular are hikes and skiing in the nearby Cascade or Olympic Mountains and kayaking and sailing in the waters of Puget Sound, the Strait of Juan de Fuca, and the Strait of Georgia. In 2005, ''Men's Fitness'' magazine named Seattle the physical fitness, fittest city in the United States.Government and politics
Seattle is a charter city, with a Mayor–council government, mayor–council form of government. From 1911 to 2013, Seattle's nine city councillors were elected at large, rather than by geographic subdivisions. For the 2015 election, this changed to a hybrid system of seven district members and two at-large members as a result of a ballot measure passed on November 5, 2013. The only other elected offices are the district attorney, city attorney and Municipal Court judges. All city offices are officially Non-partisan democracy, non-partisan. Like some other parts of the United States, government and laws are also run by a series of ballot initiatives (allowing citizens to pass or reject laws), referendums (allowing citizens to approve or reject legislation already passed), and propositions (allowing specific government agencies to propose new laws or tax increases directly to the people). Seattle is widely considered one of the most socially liberal cities in the United States, even surpassing Portland. In the 2012 U.S. general election, a majority of Seattleites voted to approve Referendum 74 and legalize gay marriage in Washington state. In the same election, an overwhelming majority of Seattleites also voted to approve the legalization of the recreational use of cannabis (drug), cannabis in the state. Like much of the Pacific Northwest (which has the lowest rate of church attendance in the United States and consistently reports the highest percentage of atheism), church attendance, religious belief, and political influence of religious leaders are much lower than in other parts of America. Seattle's political culture is very liberal and Progressivism in the United States, progressive for the United States, with over 80% of the population voting for the Democratic Party (United States), Democratic Party. All precincts in Seattle voted for Democratic Party candidate Barack Obama in the 2012 United States presidential election, 2012 presidential election. In partisan elections for the Washington State Legislature and United States Congress, nearly all elections are won by Democrats. Although local elections are nonpartisan, most of the city's elected officials are known to be Democrats. In 1926, Seattle became the first major American city to elect a female mayor, Bertha Knight Landes. It has also elected an openly gay mayor, Ed Murray (Washington politician), Ed Murray, and a third-party socialist councillor, Kshama Sawant. For the first time in United States history, an openly gay black woman was elected to public office when Sherry Harris was elected as a Seattle city councillor in 1991. In 2015, the majority of the city council was female. Federally, Seattle is split between two congressional districts. Most of the city is in Washington's 7th congressional district, represented by Democrat Pramila Jayapal, the first Indian-American woman elected to Congress. She succeeded 28-year incumbent and fellow Democrat Jim McDermott. Part of southeastern Seattle is in the Washington's 9th congressional district, 9th District, represented by Democrat Adam Smith (Washington politician), Adam Smith. Bruce Harrell was elected as mayor in the 2021 Seattle mayoral election, 2021 mayoral election, succeeding Jenny Durkan, and took office on January 1, 2022. The mayor's office also includes three deputy mayors, appointed to advise the mayor on policies. As of 2022, the city's deputy mayors are Monisha Harrell, Tiffany Washington, and Kendee Yamaguchi.Education
Of the city's population over the age of 25, 53.8% (vs. a national average of 27.4%) hold a bachelor's degree or higher, and 91.9% (vs. 84.5% nationally) have a high school diploma or General Educational Development, equivalent. A 2008 United States Census Bureau survey showed that Seattle had the highest percentage of college and university graduates of any major U.S. city. The city was listed as the most literate of the country's 69 largest cities in 2005 and 2006, the second most literate in 2007 and the most literate in 2008 in studies conducted by Central Connecticut State University. Seattle Public Schools is the school district for the vast majority of the city. That school district desegregated without a court order but continue to struggle to achieve racial balance in a somewhat ethnically divided city (the south part of town having more ethnic minorities than the north). In 2007, Seattle's racial tie-breaking system was struck down by the United States Supreme Court, but the ruling left the door open for desegregation formulae based on other indicators (e.g., income or socioeconomic class). A very small portion of the city is within the Highline School District. The public school system is supplemented by a moderate number of private schools: Five of the private high schools are Catholic Church, Catholic, one is Lutheranism, Lutheran, and six are secular. Seattle is home to the University of Washington, as well as the institution's professional and continuing education unit, the University of Washington Educational Outreach. The 2017 ''U.S. News & World Report'' ranked the University of Washington at No. 11 in the world. The UW receives more federal research and development funding than any public institution. Over the last 10 years, it has also produced more Peace Corps volunteers than any other U.S. university. Seattle also has a number of smaller private universities including Seattle University and Seattle Pacific University, the former a Jesuit Catholic institution, the latter a Free Methodist institution. The Seattle Colleges District operates three colleges: North Seattle College, Seattle Central College, and South Seattle College. Universities aimed at the working adult are the City University of Seattle, City University and Antioch University. Seminaries include Western Seminary and a number of arts colleges, such as Cornish College of the Arts, Pratt Fine Arts Center. In 2001, ''Time'' magazine selected Seattle Central Community College as community college of the year, saying that the school "pushes diverse students to work together in small teams".Media
, Seattle has one major daily newspaper, ''The Seattle Times''. The ''Seattle Post-Intelligencer'', known as the ''P-I'', published a daily newspaper from 1863 to March 17, 2009, before switching to a strictly on-line publication. There is also the ''Seattle Daily Journal of Commerce'', and the University of Washington publishes ''The Daily of the University of Washington, The Daily'', a student-run publication, when school is in session. The most prominent weeklies are the ''Seattle Weekly'' and ''The Stranger (newspaper), The Stranger''; both consider themselves alternative newspaper, "alternative" papers. The weekly LGBT newspaper is the ''Seattle Gay News''. ''Real Change'' is a weekly street newspaper that is sold mainly by homeless persons as an alternative to begging, panhandling. There are also several ethnic newspapers, including ''The Facts (Seattle), The Facts'', ''Northwest Asian Weekly'' and the ''International Examiner'' as well as numerous neighborhood newspapers. Seattle is also well served by television and radio, with all major U.S. networks represented, along with at least five other English-language stations and two Spanish-language stations. Seattle cable viewers also receive CBUT 2 (CBC Television, CBC) from Vancouver, British Columbia. Non-commercial radio stations include NPR affiliates KUOW-FM 94.9 and KNKX 88.5 (Tacoma), as well as classical music station KING-FM 98.1. Other non-commercial stations include KEXP-FM 90.3 (affiliated with the UW), community radio KBCS-FM 91.3 (affiliated with Bellevue College), and high school radio KNHC-FM 89.5, which broadcasts an electronic dance music radio format, is owned by the public school system and operated by students of Nathan Hale High School (Washington), Nathan Hale High School. Many Seattle radio stations are available through Internet radio, with KEXP in particular being a pioneer of Internet radio. Seattle also has numerous commercial radio stations. In a March 2012 report by the consumer research firm Arbitron, the top FM stations were KRWM (adult contemporary format), KIRO-FM (news/talk), and KISW (active rock) while the top AM stations were KNWN (AM), KOMO (all news), KJR (AM) (sports radio, all sports), KIRO (AM) (all sports). Seattle-based online magazines Worldchanging and Grist (magazine), Grist.org were two of the "Top Green Websites" in 2007 according to TIME.Infrastructure
Health systems
The University of Washington is consistently ranked among the country's leading institutions in medical research, earning special merits for programs in neurology and neurosurgery. Seattle has seen local developments of modern paramedic services with the establishment of Medic One in 1970. In 1974, a ''60 Minutes'' story on the success of the then four-year-old Medic One paramedic system called Seattle "the best place in the world to have a heart attack". Three of Seattle's largest medical centers are located on First Hill. Harborview Medical Center, the public county hospital, is the only Level I trauma center, trauma hospital in a region that includes Washington, Alaska, Montana, and Idaho. Virginia Mason Medical Center and Swedish Medical Center's two largest campuses are also located in this part of Seattle, including the Virginia Mason Hospital. This concentration of hospitals resulted in the neighborhood's nickname "Pill Hill". Located in the Laurelhurst, Seattle, Laurelhurst neighborhood, Seattle Children's, formerly Children's Hospital and Regional Medical Center, is the pediatric referral center for Washington, Alaska, Montana, and Idaho. The Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center has a campus in the Eastlake neighborhood. The University District is home to the University of Washington Medical Center which, along with Harborview, is operated by the University of Washington. Seattle is also served by a United States Department of Veterans Affairs, Veterans Affairs hospital onTransportation
The Seattle Street Railway, first streetcars appeared in 1889 and were instrumental in the creation of a relatively well-defined downtown and strong neighborhoods at the end of their lines. The advent of the automobile began the dismantling of rail in Seattle. Tacoma–Seattle railway service ended in 1929 and the Everett–Seattle service came to an end in 1939, replaced by automobiles running on the recently developed highway system. Rails on city streets were paved over or removed, and the opening of the Trolleybuses in Seattle, Seattle trolleybus system brought the end of Seattle Street Railway, streetcars in Seattle in 1941. This left an extensive network of privately owned buses (later public) as the only mass transit within the city and throughout the region. King County Metro provides frequent stop bus service within the city and surrounding county, as well as the South Lake Union Streetcar line and the First Hill Streetcar line. Seattle is one of the few cities in North America whose bus fleet includes electric trolleybuses. Sound Transit provides an express bus service within the metropolitan area, two Sounder commuter rail lines between the suburbs and downtown, and its 1 Line (Sound Transit), 1 Line light rail line between the University of Washington and Angle Lake. Washington State Ferries, which manages the largest network of ferries in the United States and third largest in the world, connects Seattle to Bainbridge Island, Washington, Bainbridge and Vashon, Washington, Vashon Islands in Puget Sound and to Bremerton and Southworth, Washington, Southworth on the Kitsap Peninsula. King Street Station in Pioneer Square serves Amtrak intercity trains and Sounder commuter trains, and is located adjacent to the International District/Chinatown station, International District/Chinatown light rail station. According to the 2007 American Community Survey, 18.6% of Seattle residents used one of the three public transit systems that serve the city, giving it the highest transit ridership of all major cities without heavy or light rail prior to the completion of Sound Transit's 1 Line. The city has also been described by Bert Sperling as the fourth most walkable U.S. city and by Walk Score as the sixth most walkable of the fifty largest U.S. cities. Seattle–Tacoma International Airport, locally known as Sea-Tac Airport and located just south in the neighboring city of SeaTac, is operated by the Port of Seattle and provides commercial air service to destinations throughout the world. Closer to downtown, Boeing Field is used for general aviation, cargo flights, and testing/delivery of Boeing airliners. A secondary passenger airport, Paine Field, opened in 2019 and is located in Everett, north of Seattle. It is predominantly used by Boeing and their Boeing Everett Factory, large assembly plant located nearby. The main mode of transportation, however, is the street system, which is laid out in a cardinal directions grid plan, grid pattern, except in the central business district where early city leaders Arthur A. Denny, Arthur Denny and Carson Boren insisted on orienting the plats relative to the shoreline rather than to true North. Only two roads, Interstate 5 in Washington, Interstate 5 and Washington State Route 99, State Route 99 (both limited-access highways) run uninterrupted through the city from north to south. From 1953 to 2019, State Route 99 ran through downtown Seattle on the Alaskan Way Viaduct, an elevated freeway on the waterfront. However, due to damage sustained during the 2001 Nisqually earthquake the viaduct was replaced by a tunnel. The Alaskan Way Viaduct replacement tunnel was originally scheduled to be completed in December 2015 at a cost of US$4.25 billion. The world's largest tunnel boring machine, named "Bertha (tunnel boring machine), Bertha", was commissioned for the project, measuring in diameter. The tunnel's opening was delayed to February 2019 due to issues with the tunnel boring machine, which included a two-year halt in excavation. Seattle has the 8th worst traffic congestion of all American cities, and is 10th among all North American cities according to Inrix. The city has started moving away from the automobile and towards mass transit. From 2004 to 2009, the annual number of unlinked public transportation trips increased by approximately 21%. In 2006, voters in King County passed the Transit Now proposition, which increased bus service hours on high ridership routes and paid for five limited-stop bus lines called RapidRide. After rejecting a Roads and Transit, roads and transit measure in 2007, Seattle-area voters passed a transit only measure in 2008 to increase ST Express bus service, extend the Link light rail system, and expand and improve Sounder commuter rail service. A light rail line (now the 1 Line (Sound Transit), 1 Line) from downtown heading south to Sea-Tac Airport began service on December 19, 2009, giving the city its first rapid transit line with intermediate stations within the city limits. An extension north to the University of Washington opened on March 19, 2016, followed by the Northgate, Seattle, Northgate extension in October 2021. Further extensions are planned to reach Lynnwood, Washington, Lynnwood to the north, Federal Way, Washington, Federal Way to the south, and Bellevue and Redmond to the east by 2025. Voters in the Puget Sound region approved an additional tax increase in November 2016 to expand light rail to West Seattle and Ballard as well as Tacoma, Everett, and Issaquah.Utilities
Water and electric power are municipal services, provided by Seattle Public Utilities and Seattle City Light respectively. Other utility companies serving Seattle include Puget Sound Energy (natural gas, electricity), Seattle Steam Company (steam), Waste Management, Inc and Recology CleanScapes (curbside recycling, composting, and solid waste removal), CenturyLink, Frontier Communications, Wave Broadband, and Comcast (telecommunications and television). About 90% of Seattle's hydroelectricity, electricity is produced using hydropower. Less than 2% of electricity is produced using fossil fuels.International relations
Seattle has the following sister city, sister cities: * Beersheba, Israel * Bergen, Norway * Cebu City, Philippines * Chongqing, China * Christchurch, New Zealand * Daejeon, South Korea * Galway, Republic of Ireland, Ireland * Gdynia, Poland * Haiphong, Vietnam * Kaohsiung, Taiwan * Tashkent, Uzbekistan * Kobe, Japan * Limbe, Cameroon, Limbe, Cameroon * Mombasa, Kenya * Nantes, France * Pécs, Hungary * Perugia, Italy * Reykjavík, Iceland * Sihanoukville (city), Sihanoukville, Cambodia * Surabaya, IndonesiaSee also
* * * List of people from Seattle * List of television shows set in SeattleNotes
References
Bibliography
* * * * * *Further reading
* * * * Sanders, Jeffrey Craig. ''Seattle and the Roots of Urban Sustainability: Inventing Ecotopia'' (University of Pittsburgh Press; 2010) 288 pages; the rise of environmental activismExternal links
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